


Green Light

by nicasio_silang



Category: The Mindy Project
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-27
Updated: 2013-03-27
Packaged: 2017-12-06 15:47:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/737402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nicasio_silang/pseuds/nicasio_silang
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One, leather gloves mainly smell like leather, but these also smell like Ivory and Rocawear Evolution.</p><p>Two, Danny left his gloves at my apartment a couple weeks ago. </p><p>Three, deriving from the first two, Danny Castellano wears a scent designed by Jay-Z.</p><p>Which, come on, is a game-changer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Green Light

**Author's Note:**

> With thanks to all my friends for putting up with my personality crisis while writing this.

Not to say that I’ve thought about this a lot before, but here’s a pre-written list of reasons why I shouldn’t sleep with Danny:

1\. ~~Danny is Italian. Not to be ethnic-ist or whatever, but there’s every possibility that under his shirt, he’s super hairy. And not hot, Jonny Lee Miller hairy, but zoo animal, Robin Williams hairy.~~

2\. Divorced guys are 25% more likely to call out someone else’s name in bed. I don’t need that.

3\. Danny seems like one of those guys who calls women “momma”. No. Just no.

4\. One time in the locker room I saw his butt and it’s frankly just okay. (#1 refuted.)

5\. Cart before the horse here, but I can’t end up with a kid named Vincenzo or Giuseppe. I don’t even know how to pronounce those.

6\. Moonlighting was overrated, THERE I SAID IT.

Turns out it’s a great list to keep around now that Danny’s...a nice person? Who I get drinks with sometimes? And twice in the past two weeks he’s brought me random sandwiches and they were really good, artisan bread sandwiches. And then this thing happened that I didn’t mean to happen and it’s messing with my zen.

 

This thing that happened has been whizzing around in my brain all morning, and I can only hold it in so long, because it’s toxic to keep things inside instead of processing, so I wait all the way until the middle of brunch when Alex is more than halfway through Sunday Styles, and then I approach the subject super casually.

“Hey have you ever been, you know, taking care of business, and had _the wrong_ orgasm?” Alex doesn’t even look up when I say this.

“No such thing,” she says.

“Granted, but seriously just like, things are going fine, all systems normal, and then at the _moment_ the _exact wrong thing_ comes to mind, but it’s too late! Things are happening, synapses are firing, juices are flowing, your back is arching, the violins are playing-”

“You need to tell me the name of this vibrator.”

“And when you least expect it this _image_ just leaps out at you, like a mugger from behind a bush! Wow I did not mean to make that joke, that’s not even a joke I appreciate, but anyway and it’s _the exact wrong image_ and so...”

“So I’m gonna stop you right there.” She puts down the newspaper. The corner of the page goes in her mimosa. “And not because I don’t think we’re close enough to talk in detail about your creepy, deviant fantasies, but it seriously pains me to hear you talk like there’s something wrong with having creepy fantasies.”

“Well, I don’t know if I’d call it creepy...”

“It is absolutely normal to be turned on by freaky stuff! The entire winter of 1992, I could only get off by imagining I was one of the women in Gary Oldman’s vampire harem in Dracula. But like, old Gary Oldman with the powdered wig. Mmm, still gets me.”

That deserves a really, really long silence, so I make eye contact with her for about ten seconds.

Then she says, “God, you’re so vanilla."

"We were thirteen that year."

"Fine, whatever, I’m never sharing with you again. You have to tell me yours now.”

And today I ordered the parfait-in-a-melon that’s literally half a cantaloupe with yogurt and granola in it, and Alex says “vanilla” like that which gets me thinking about flavors, of which vodka is one, so I gotta tell her that this brunch would be 50% better if my melon had been pre-soaked in vodka. Alex takes away my melon because she’s a jerk.

“Fine, fine! It was...”

“Joe Lieberman. Posh Spice. Christian Bale the way he looked during _The Machinist_.”

“Okay first: ew. Second, she is _amazing_ so show some respect and call her Victoria Beckham. Third: that was really, incriminatingly specific. And during the course of this conversation I have decided that it wasn’t actually a big deal. So I will have my melon back,” and I take my melon. “Thank you. You are totally right.”

“Exactly. What gets you hot is what gets you hot, there’s nothing wrong with whatever it is.”

“Actually, I meant about Joe Lieberman. Guy looks like a shiitake mushroom.”

Twenty minutes and three narrations of wedding announcements later, Alex says she just needs me to tell her one thing.

“And you can be totally honest. I just need to know.” She’s got her no judgement face on, the one that looks judgemental. “The object of your erotic fantasy. Was it at least a mammal?”

“You are the actual worst.”

 

That was going to be completely it, finito, end of non-story because there wasn’t even anything to talk about at that point. Until I maybe had the same fantasy again. Maybe on purpose. A little.

It’s not even developed enough to be called a fantasy, it’s more like just a scenario.

Okay so to back up, before this happened the first time, I was doing normal grown-up stuff, sorting through this month’s pile of mail that I’d avoided opening in case it was an unexpected bill or AARP solicitation or another invite to a baby shower for someone at least five years younger than me. Halfway through the mail I find this pair of leather guy gloves just hanging out. Not Josh’s because the ritual Goodwill donation of all his remaining stuff happened more than a month ago, and not Brendan’s because leather is the blood-soaked armor of the oppressor. So I was confused and when I held them up to sniff them (identifying men by their soap/cologne combo is my superpower), I realized a couple things at once.

One, leather gloves mainly smell like leather, but these also smell like Ivory and Rocawear Evolution.

Two, Danny left his gloves at my apartment a couple weeks ago.

Three, deriving from the first two, Danny Castellano wears a scent designed by Jay-Z.

Which, come on, is a game-changer.

But whatever, I put them in my bag so I’ll take them to the office in the morning and I take my laptop to bed. And realize that I'm four episodes behind on Scandal what the fuck. So _then_ it’s 2 in the morning and I’m super stressed about rooting against Noel from Felicity, and then it’s 2:30 and I’m getting a little emotional about this blog post by a woman whose kid saw Scandal (is that legal?) and asked why the President was white, and then it’s 3AM and I’m not young enough to have a consultation in five hours, so the sleep situation is dire.

Like anyone who needs to relax and fall asleep as fast as possible, I start to masturbate.

I use that old reliable scenario where I’m dancing really awesome in a club, wearing my orange London Soles because I thought ahead like a genius, and I don’t even have a purse to deal with or leave with friends for some reason, it’s not even an issue. I’m dancing so awesome that I end up dancing with the hottest best dancer guy who’s also there on his own and everyone else moves off the dance floor because we’re too awesome. Dreamy club guy and I are all up on each other right there, and I push some hair out of my face and...get this tiny whiff of Ivory soap and Rocawear Evolution off my hand. It gives my dreamy club guy a face but then it’s too late and, well. Whoops: there it is.

Did nobody else think that was the lyric for the longest time?

The point is: totally unconscious sensory association, nbd. Especially taking into account that hentai exists as a legit thing, so this doesn’t even register on the weird scale.

Still working on an excuse for going there again this morning in the shower, though.

 

Anyway, now it’s Monday and I’m at the office dealing with an internal issue.

“I cannot wear white eyeliner, Betsy. I just end up looking shocked all the time. Which worked for like, three months in 2009 when Zooey Deschanel was new and exciting, but the world is a different place now.”

“Well you have to do something, it’s a theme party!”

“I am great at costumes, I’ll be fine.” Betsy purses her lips and moves them all around her face. It’s weird, but I think it means she’s dubious. “I am super good at costumes.”

“Is that what that is?” Danny plops down a chart on top of the one I was about to get right back to and waves a pen at my outfit.

“Har dee ha ha.”

“Doctor C, what are you going to wear?”

“Yeah, he’s not going to this. Not the Castellano scene. It’s gonna be young people, Danny, you’ll feel like Joe Biden at a rave.”

“What am I not going to?”

I’m trying to send Betsy messages with my eyes but she’s receiving some totally different message, making jazz hands and bouncing in her squeaky chair.

“Shauna’s on her first spring break from medical school and invited the whole office to a theme party!”

“So like a doctor theme? I could do that, I’m doing that right now.” Which he is not, okay, wearing a stethoscope is just what he does when there are people in the waiting area. We barely even use stethoscopes.

“It’s 1930’s themed. Flappers and gangsters, it’s going to be so much fun! I’ve been tying strings onto a dress every night this week.”

Danny’s stupid face lights up. Jesus, he probably owns a Tommy Gun.

“You’re going?” he asks me.

If I was a bad person, like me six months ago, I would shout _Hey did you know Shauna used to want your body isn’t that weird maybe that would make this weird she told me a lot about wanting your body in super weird ways._ But I’m a grownup now, so I just say yes.

“Cool. You have a, like a flapper dress? With the?” He does a swirly hand thing.

“Yeah, why, you wanna borrow it? It’s really good for people with no figure.”

And he just smiles and then walks away. That’s it. And now I need a flapper dress.

 

“In the anatomy lab, there’s a giant bucket that’s full of human torsos.” Shauna beams. “It’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen. I love it.”

Throw in half a dozen people in their mid-twenties doing jell-o shots while wearing double-breasted suits and somehow ignoring the fact that they’re irrevocably chest-deep in debt for the rest of their lives, and that’s basically the whole party. But I got to wear fishnets! Those are never appropriate, and I bought them four years ago and hadn’t taken them out of the packaging yet, so it was awesome.

 

It’s 11PM, Shauna’s clearly gonna go all night. I’m in the top three oldest people at this party. It’s time for a cab. At the door Danny is holding open my coat for me.

“Wanna share a ride?”

“Why yes, gentlemanly stranger, I would.” He even holds the door open. This is not looking good for my self control.

“I figure us old fogeys gotta stick together.”

“Um, excuse me, ‘us’ are not old, ‘us’ just has a job and responsibilities and hasn’t been in Brooklyn past midnight since like, 2005.”

“I don’t think that’s the defense you meant it to be.”

“Yeah I’m kinda off, that fruit punch was just gin and grenadine.”

We’re standing there and a cab pulls up because Danny has this native New Yorker thing where he can flip a switch and radiate “I need a cab” pheromones and fuzzy dice all around the city pull drivers towards him.

In the cab it smells like sea salt and plastic, nice and familiar. Danny is sitting in the middle seat like that’s normal and our legs are touching. And he’s asking me about my life, which he does a lot, but I didn’t really notice before.

“What, sorry?”

“Med school, were you all excited like that too?”

“Oh man yeah, I was psyched out of my brain. I was really good at school, so signing up for four more years was like a get out of life free card. You?”

“Yeah, I don’t know, it was the first time I was gonna be really far from home, I felt guilty about that for a while.”

“About becoming a kickass doctor? There’s probably a statue of you somewhere on Staten Island.”

“Kickass, huh?”

“Not a big statue though, because, you know.” I hover my hand in the universal gesture for short.

“Hey!”

He takes a swat at my arm and I can smell him, and I’m definitely drunk enough to just say-

“ _Damn._ ”

“What, you okay?” Then he’s hovering all close.

I say something great like, “Yeah, yeah yeah yeah, I’m, yep, you have a really nice cologne is that, yeah! Yeah, yeah, I’m good.”

“Thanks?” The cab’s stopped. “Do you want to come up for a coffee or something?”

Hello, sudden resurgence of sobriety.

“Are you asking me up for a nightcap?”

“I, hey, you don’t, I mean, I know you’ve got to go check that your DVR caught The Hills or whatever, so.”

“Whoa. Okay, for knowing what The Hills is, yes, I am going to come up for a nightcap.”

 

Then we banged.

 

Yeah, like I’m gonna give the dirty details. My life is not a Playboy letters page, okay? We had sex, it was super hot, nothing really weird went on which is great because I totally had him pegged as a foot fetish guy. But yeah, in summary: sex. And that’s all I’m gonna say about it. Seriously.

I mean, it’s not like there’s any question that I rocked his world. We’re talking all night, multi-location, 2AM break for snacks sex, like you have when you’re 24 and you still count having a post-sex shower with the lights on as a sign that a guy likes and wants to know you as a person.

 

Which, okay fine, but this is the only bit I’m going to talk about: _Danny has a tattoo_. I don’t know why I didn’t expect that! It’s this traditional looking cross and fire and swirly stuff thing on his shoulder, like that tattoo that they paint onto actors playing tough guys on The Wire or something. So we’re getting in the shower, taking off our last bits of clothes (socks and undershirt, respectively) and I see it, and I’m really surprised, so I smack him on it.

“What the! Is this fake? Is this gonna rub off in the shower?”

“Yeah, you know,” he fiddles with the taps and pulls me into the stall by my elbow. “I was thinking, what is Mindy really into? Obviously, that’s Our Lord Jesus Christ.”

“Well that was not the best plan, since I didn’t see it until now.”

He gets under the spray-- this shower stall is tiny, our nipples and elbows are in the way of everything. I help him out with his hair. When you push it all back he’s got a serious widow’s peak, like murderer-level widow’s peak. He’s got his eyes closed from the water, so it’s a good time to make out with his jaw a little bit.

Right next to my ear, “Shoulda gone for the neck tattoo.”

 

I don’t think that can really be appreciated without some background on wtf Danny’s apartment turned out to be like. Because, get this, I am going to make posters and hang them around the office and they’re gonna say _Danny Castellano lives on the Upper West Side in an open-plan loft_. There is a pillar in the middle of the apartment! It serves no functional purpose! He has a blu-ray player and a flat screen, wall-mounted TV, and does not even own a record player, this stuff is blowing my mind.

So we get there and he walks in and I’m just in the doorway like, “Are we breaking into Tim Gunn’s apartment right now?”

He decides not to hear me and pours out some tequila from a skull bottle. I open the fridge because it’s like the medicine cabinet of the kitchen, psychologically-speaking.

“You want anything to eat? I can make a sandwich.”

“No, I’m good. Is it okay that I’m kinda comforted by you having only domestic beers in here?” He closes the fridge and hands me a glass.

“I just get whatever’s on sale.”

“There’s a whole ham in there. What do you do with an entire ham?”

“Slice it. For sandwiches. You sure you don’t want one? It’s good ham.”

“They have people at delis who do that for you. Trained professionals.”

“Some people grind and press their own coffee,” we clink, we drink. “I slice my own meat. It’s an animal thing.”

“Did you just quote Riddick?”

“You’ve seen those movies?”

“Have _you_ seen those movies? Vin Diesel’s a goddamn brick house.”

“I think that usually describes a woman.”

Okay look, I know this sounds super boring, but it was not boring, it was actually really weird and intense. We’re leaning against the kitchen island, the lights are low, he’s doing that handsy thing he does where he touches my upper arm every other minute, and I’m wearing my London Soles, and there isn’t any music playing, but there isn’t a lot of personal bubble happening either. And wow, Jay-Z makes a really good cologne. It’s weird and confusing and then he says _describes a woman_ and looks at my mouth and my dress and my mouth again. I don’t remember what this part of the story was supposed to be about, but right there was my I’m only human moment.

 

And okay just one more thing: Danny is super loud in bed. And not in a normal way? He’s like a grizzly bear who just woke up from hibernating and it’s like _awr awr awr, I haven’t used my giant bear voice in ten months, gotta get all the creaks out._

“That is not even...I don’t... Bears hibernate for six months, tops.”

“It’s not a criticism,” I say.

I would expand on this more, but there’s some great swimsuit area stuff happening, and I have my priorities.

“Awr,” I hear from somewhere between my breasts. “Awr,” and there are teeth this time.

“Is this supposed to be hot?” There are _om nom_ noises on my stomach, which I’m pretty sure bears don’t even make.

He’s shouldering down between my legs and says, “How would you feel about some kinda pun about a cave?”

“I will end you.”

He laughs right up against my thigh.

 

Waking up the morning after really good sex is the second best thing, after having really good sex. The light is soft, everything smells like a tastefully perfumed brothel, and sex-sore hips are like a high-five straight to the brain. Plus, this morning I wake up doing the little spoon thing which means there’s a penis napping against my butt.

Wow, I am a big fan of penis.

Big spoon takes this clicky breath and lets it out on my shoulder and it’s sex and tequila and...cold cuts? Which is both more and less appealing than you’d think, but _fuck_ , I know who big spoon is.

The upside of making terrible choices is that I’m really good at this situation. I take his big, meaty hand (guy’s hands are unexpectedly huge for his size, I mean, let’s be real, Danny makes me feel tall, and I’m the size of a child) uncurl it from my boob (thanks for the damp boob, buddy) and shove his arm into the warm back-stomach cave behind me. I headbutt him very little as I’m getting up. I do not fart even a bit or at all.

It’s all going super well, but do you have any idea how difficult it is to be stealthy when there’s a penis pressing up on your butt? The penis is a very perceptive body part. There’s a muffled _Mind?_ that I don’t turn around for. There’s a blanket on the floor which I toga around myself and say something like-

“Yeah hey I gotta coffee and go maybe you know sweater somewhere um so I guess I’ll see you and maybe yep!”

By the end of that I’d already gotten my bra off the top of the fridge and I’m finding my shoes on the kitchen counter. The blanket goes on the floor because there is just no way to coordinate all that. When I straighten up, bra’d and in half-calf boots, blanket that has some sort of giant picture of a church on it circled around my feet, Danny is standing there way too sober and buck-ass naked. I do some deep breathing and look at the ceiling. Exposed fixtures? For real?

“Are you freaking out?” he says.

“What? God! Are you? It’s just, I’ve got, it’s Tuesday, okay?”

“Yeah, I set an alarm, and it didn’t go off yet, so we’re good.”

He crosses his arms and just, I love naked men, but naked men are weird. They look like that, under their clothes, all the time. That is really weird. He has really muscular legs. Does he actually go to the gym when he says he’s “going to the gym”? Who does that?

He walks up and stands on top of the blanket, takes me by the elbow and says, “Are you okay with...?”

His hair is nuts right now. There’s an actual hickey under his ear. Good Christ, I have slept with both the partners at my practice.

“Of course I am freaking out, Danny, we have nothing in common!”

“We have stuff in common.”

“Name two things.”

He does the _pfft, come on_ dance. Starts with a _pfft_ , then looks around the room at random objects like _hey microwave, can you believe this girl_ , then gets kinda desperate at other objects like _come on toaster, help me out here_. Finally, a look of triumph. He ticks off on his fingers.

“Obstetrics. Gynecology.”

“Oh my god, you really just said that.”

“That stuff counts!”

He’s laughing a little like this is a moment. We’re at the kitchen island and it’s basically last night except he’s nude and I’m not wearing any underpants. I say _Look, I’m not really_ when he says _Hey, I just wanna_ and I stop and let him talk because I’m not 100% sure where I was going with that.

Neither was he, apparently, because there’s _I mean I_ and then _And, you know, last night was, yeah, it was_ and finally _So it would, just, if you want to_.

“Spit it out, Castellano.”

“Jesus, okay, I like you a lot, I think you’re amazing, and if you want to, I think we could, we should,” he gestures between our belly buttons.

“Are you asking me out?” I ask.

The guy who frenched me while tasting like my vagina can’t actually make eye contact when he says, “Yeah.”

“Oh.”

Down on the floor with our toes, that blanket definitely has a picture of a full-blown cathedral on it, with a name that includes an M, which I’d ask about, but this doesn’t seem like the right time. My toe polish looks really great, considering it’s three days old. Danny has sock fuzz under his big toenails. Has anybody invented a product to prevent that yet? Or is it just down to buying better socks?

“So...”

“Oh, yeah! Sorry! Can I um. This was great. You are, yep. Can I put on my clothes and get back to you on that?” Looking like I just shot a kitten in the face, he says “yeah” ten times in a row.

 

It was not my smoothest exit. I went around the block and waited for two trains to go by so that we wouldn’t be on the same train. I texted _911 fuck fuck fuck_ to three different people. Finally, in my office, I got on the phone with Gwen.

“This is Danny who broke my arm with a bunk bed Danny?”

“Yeah.”

I have a couple outfits at the office, so at least that’s taken care of, but wow, the straighteners I left here are seriously sub-par and they’re making weird noises in my hair. It doesn’t help that my monitor is a really unreliable mirror.

“Wait, didn’t you guys already...?”

“What? No! What?”

“Sorry! There was a vibe. Anyway, okay, yeah, Danny.”

“No! No, this is not okay, I think he wants to be my boyfriend.”

“What is so bad about this guy?”

“Well, he broke your arm with a bunk bed.”

“Yeah, but he was really nice about it. Seriously, what?”

“He just...” I make a throat noise and almost burn my forehead. “I just know him really well, okay. And he knows me _really_ well.”

“And still wants to be your boyfriend. Scary, huh?”

“Shit.” I unplug the straighteners and write something down on a post-it. “I have to go, okay? I love you, I have to go.”

“Text me if you want to get lunch and yell some more.”

Then in Danny’s office I close the door, hand him the post-it. Try not to concentrate on how the left half of my head is poofier than the right.

“I have no idea how to say these.”

“...Guiseppe and Vincenzo?”

“Oh. Wow, those are actually really pretty.”

“Was there anything else you wanted to...?”

Danny has his sleeves rolled up and at 9:30AM he’s already sweat through his dress shirt. He looks like he wants me to leave so he can jump out the window. It’s almost flattering, but I’m just not that intimidating. I have the voice of a hot Elmo.

“I don’t know if this is really a great idea,” I say. Danny shrugs the shrug of someone who wants to vomit instead. And, God help me, that seals it. He’s Reese Witherspoon. I’m Matthew McConaughey. I can work with that. I lean over the desk and plant one on him. “Let’s do it anyway.”

**Author's Note:**

> All due credit to quigonejinn for Danny's secretly fashionable apartment.


End file.
